


heat rises

by attheborder



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Acting, Canon Continuation, F/M, In-Universe RPF, Multimedia, Pining, Post-Part II, RPF.... OR IS IT?!!?!?!, Shared Consciousness, Theater - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 16:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18528883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attheborder/pseuds/attheborder
Summary: Inside, he is a war: Homer, screaming outwhat about OA, go find her, go save her,desperate to fly across the ocean heedlessly and seek her out in the streets, wherever she is— Dr. Roberts, pragmatic, sayingstay put, make a plan—and Emory, driven by desires wholly outside of the echo that connects Homer to OA, sayingyou have a play to rehearse, buddy, you aren’t going anywhere.





	heat rises

_getting high just from the heat_

_i'll be lost until we meet_

_didn't think i'd be waiting for you_

_didn't figure i stood chances_

— heat rises, [ nilüfer yanya ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm8LvtTQaAs)

 

 

“Emory. _Emory._ Dude, are you alright? Fuck, I’m so sorry—”

He’s lying on the floor, on his back. His ears are ringing; an unbearable, high-pitched whine is all he can hear. He reaches up to the burning spot on his forehead, feels a tender swollen lump, and lets out a groan.

“I seriously didn’t even see you, I swear, I was just opening the cabinet to get at the Kahlua and you came outta nowhere—”

“Dave, it’s fine. I’m fine,” and he is levering himself up from the floor with a grunt, twisting his neck to try and rid his head of that awful ringing.

“But you went _down,_ dude, are you sure you’re not concussed? Here, uh, try to follow my finger with your eyes.”

 He bats Dave’s hand out of his face dismissively. “Since when are you a doctor? I’m not concussed. I’m just… you know, in pain. A little.”

He feels his head again. The lump has gotten larger in the last 10 seconds, he’s positive, but the ringing is dying down now, and he’s steady on his feet, and he’s certain he’s in his right mind because he's finding himself getting logically, reasonably angry at his roommate for giving him a grievous facial injury the night before an audition.

Dave opens the freezer and retrieves a half-full bag of frozen peas held shut with a Squarespace-branded clip.

“Here, man, put this on there,” he says, handing it over, and Emory takes it gratefully. The vegetables are blissful cool relief against the throb of his forehead. He throws a baleful glance at the culprit, that sinisterly solid cabinet door, painted an offensively ugly beige and seeming to have taken comparatively less damage in their little altercation. 

Dave seems to have forgotten all about the alcohol he’d been opening the cabinet in the first place to retrieve, because he’s going back to the couch now, still mumbling apologies. Emory refrains politely from complaining out loud about the effect a giant bruise is going to have on his audition prospects because he knows that would really set Dave off and he is not in the mood for roommate conflict right now. Not after the toilet brush incident was only just resolved a few days ago.

So he grabs the glass of water he had been coming into the kitchen in the first place for and goes back to his room, where his laptop is open to the research he’d been doing to prep for his audition. It’s for a workshop for a new play, as yet untitled, by a highly feted up-and-coming writer/director named Gina Mulholland. He’s reading for the part of Jacob Martin, a neurotic college student who falls under the sway of a charismatic film professor. One night she invites him to a private screening of a strange film… et cetera, et cetera. Plenty of Jungian symbolism, referential monologuing, feminist overtones, communist undertones, it’s a smorgasbord for the downtown set, and he wouldn’t even have to go full-frontal.  

It’s a bit esoteric, more than a little overly intellectual, but it _is_ only a workshop and Mulholland _has_ gotten quite a bit of buzz. The presentation will combine film and theater, it’s that multimodal thing that’s very in right now, probably due to the overstimulating nature of contemporary media and the need for theatre to keep up, to compete for those precious screen-drunk attention spans of the younger age group. But it just so happens that he _is_ that younger age group, and he’s suckered right in by the prospect of acting simultaneously for the stage and screen, go figure.

After a while he shuts his computer, puts his phone out to charge in the living room like a responsible, health-conscious millennial, and downs a few aspirin in the bathroom to stave off the mild throb still remaining from the cabinet door. Back into his room, in bed, lights out, and...

He can’t fall asleep. There’s something he’s forgetting. Something really, really important that he needs to do. Groceries? No. Call his grandma? Did that yesterday. Sides memorized? Done, finished, all good. 

Whatever. If it’s really that important, he’ll remember in the morning. 

*** 

His alarm goes off at 9AM, and he still doesn’t remember what he was trying to remember, so it must have not been that big of a deal. His head doesn’t hurt unless he presses hard on the impact zone. No lasting damage, except perhaps cosmetically. It’s a nasty bruise, he observes in the mirror as he gets dressed. 

In the kitchen he pours himself a bowl of cereal and sits down to engage in a classic eat/scroll combo across from Dave, who is doing the same.

“Oh my god,” Dave says, reading something on his phone.  

“What is it?” 

“Brit Marling got in an accident on set,” Dave says, “filming the new season of _The OA…_ she’s in intensive care… Says right here she fell, doing a stunt, shit, man, that sucks… ”   

“... _What?_ ”

“Here, I’m sending you the link—”

There is a wave, building, cresting, about to break, a massive tsunami of thought and feeling and Emory says, “thanks,” and Dave’s text comes through and he clicks the link and he’s pushing back from the table, abandoning his breakfast, retreating across the kitchen to his room as the page loads and he’s looking at a headline and then a photo of two actors from that show, that popular show, that he loves, that everyone loves—

And the wave comes crashing down. 

_Integration._

It’s the elevator at the clinic all over again, except this time he’s in a modestly decorated Brooklyn bedroom, nobody’s in any immediate peril as far as he knows, the light through the blinds is white, not blood-red. He closes his eyes, as if that will do anything to help offset the disembodied discomfort of not one but _two_ sets of memories and personalities rushing into his mind as if through a high-pressure garden hose suddenly unkinked.

One Homer, two Homer… and Emory makes three.  

His heart pounding, he picks the phone back up again. The photo. Jason and Brit. Hap and OA. This _must_ be what she meant: _“It might take me to a place where I don’t know myself.”_ Scrolling, he reads. The article is short, nondescript, but it’s enough.

 

 

Things slot together in his mind, information meeting in the middle across recently disintegrated boundaries.

Three years ago, he—  _Emory—_ auditioned for a Netflix show called _The OA,_ for the part of Homer Roberts. He was almost offered the part, he was one of two final choices, but it went to some goyische jock named Blake Jenner. The show was a massive hit and he’d managed to get over himself and his own disappointment to become a pretty big fan. All his friends were into it too, including his roommate Dave, they had watch parties and stuff. It was a good show.

Three months ago, he—  _Homer—_ was involved in a carbon monoxide incident at his clinical psychology residency at Melanu Clinic in San Francisco, which had left certain patients with lingering and treatment-resistant delusions, and induced a very strange personality change in his respected advisor that he’d failed utterly to acknowledge and deal with in a timely manner.

One day ago, he— _Homer—_ was shot in the back by the most evil man he’d ever known, seconds after reuniting with the woman he loved, seconds before she took both of them along as she jumped into the river between dimensions and they were swept away, only to land… 

Here. Where _The OA_ is the name of a TV show. A show about his life— Homer’s life. One season so far. Created, produced, written by, and starring one Brit Marling in the titular role.

He tries to work out the timing. This article was posted this morning, referencing an event that took place yesterday, and if you factor in the time difference between New York and London, that means… yes, he knows he’s right, the moment they jumped was the moment Brit fell, the exact moment Dave had deployed the cabinet door as a weapon of mass destruction. 

He scrolls back up to the picture at the top of the article, rage rising inside of him. Hap has made it over unscathed, triumphant, into the dimension of his dreams, one where he is married to his precious Prairie— the thought is almost too painful to bear—

“Hey, you okay, man?” comes a voice from outside the room. “You gonna finish your cereal?”

It’s his roommate. It’s _Emory’s_ roommate. He thinks fast, manages a weak shout: “I think I might have a concussion after all. I’m gonna go to urgent care.”

Dave is at the door now. “Fuck, really? I’m so sorry— shit, I shouldn’t have let you go to bed, I know you’re not supposed to sleep when you might have a concussion— do you need me to go with you?”

Homer— because that is who he is, that is the way the balance has shifted, it’s simple math if you think about it— is pulling on a pair of shoes now, grabbing his— Emory’s— laptop & backpack. “No, it’s alright,” he reassures Dave. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m still _really_ sorry, and now you’re going to miss your audition…”

Right. The audition. Emory is an _actor._ And it’s instinctive— Homer thinks back to a past that isn’t his, and recalls that Emory has a chummy relationship with this particular casting director, Audrey, and says as casually as possible, “I can reschedule. No problem. They love me there, I’ll just tell them I have a medical emergency—” 

“Which you _do,”_ Dave says anxiously. It’s almost like he _wants_ Emory to have a concussion. Probably would make a better punchline for his next open mic. 

“Yeah. Maybe. See you later,” says Homer, unable to sustain the conversation any longer, and he’s out the door, breathing hard, autopilot taking him down the hallway past a sleek bike and helmet he simultaneously recognizes as belonging to both Emory and to Dr. Roberts. _Dimensions, man._

Down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk and he’s not heading for the Greenpoint G stop a block away that would take him to the urgent care in Williamsburg, he’s headed for Emory’s favorite quiet coffee shop across Franklin, where the WiFi is fast and the music is quiet and he can sit in peace and try to bring himself (himselves?) to some kind of equilibrium, to some kind of desperate attempt at inner understanding.

The walk to the coffee shop is at once familiar and foreign, he is seeing in triplicate— the well-worn path of Emory’s perambulations against the mild recognizance of Dr. Roberts who’d spent a single summer in New York during undergrad against the utter naivety of Homer who had never left the Midwest— it’s all a bit much.

OA would know what to do. She’d know how to deal with it, with this impossible inner clamor, she was floating between Nina and Prairie and OA so seamlessly back at the clinic in those last few moments, like she’d been doing it all her life… He needs her _back._

He’s at the coffee shop by now, waving to his favorite barista, who says as she spots him, “Emory! What happened to your _face?_ ”

“Roommate. Cabinet,” he says, rubbing the still-tender bruise above his right eye, hoping that suffices for an explanation.

“Oh, for sure, the worst,” Lilly says. “The usual?”

“Yeah,” says Homer, he knows the usual is a flat white with whole milk and a gluten-free croissant, Emory is a gluten-free kind of guy, which is the opposite of Dr. Roberts who would get the flat white with oat milk and delight in a gluten-heavy pastry, and it’s all very funny because Homer wouldn’t give a shit, he’d eat anything put in front of him after seven years of captivity immediately prior to which he’d been a calorically-consumptive monstrosity of an athlete. 

He pays, retrieves the coffee and croissant from Lilly, seats himself at Emory’s default spot in the corner, and opens his laptop, which connects automatically to the network. Up on the screen from last night, pre-jump, are the windows of research on Mulholland’s play and a PDF of his audition sides. He remembers that he needs to make a call.

Dave and Lilly had just been test runs. Here, then is a true test of his nascent ability to seamlessly occupy a single facet of his integrated persona, like OA did. He takes a deep breath. 

Phone: open. Audrey Cunningham, casting director: dialed.

“Hey Ems,” Audrey says.

“Hey, Audrey,” Emory replies. “Bad news. I’m at urgent care. Roommate might have given me a concussion. Can I come in this afternoon instead of in an hour?”

“Oh nooo,” Audrey groans sympathetically. “Yeah, for sure, I’ll move some stuff around for you. Sure you want to read with a concussion?”

“Of course,” says Emory. “I’m a professional.”

“Yeah you are. Always. OK, great. See you at 4?”

“Perfect. Gina’s going to be there, right?”

“Yeah. She’s very excited to see you read. She saw you in _Lemon_ here last year, did you know that?”

“Oh god, really?" 

And they go back and forth for a bit, swapping gossip, and then he makes an excuse like he’s about to get called into the doctor’s office, and he hangs up the phone, and leans back, and then Homer rushes back into his mind like the cool water of a fountain filling up around a central sculpture.

Okay. So he can do that.

He thinks back to post-jump in the clinic, viewing Dr. Roberts’ memories through the prism of Homer’s perspective for the first time, and can’t help but laugh in dark pity at Hap, wholly unaware of the knowledge and personality of Dr. Percy, so close at hand yet suppressed below his domineering consciousness. All of those new responsibilities he dumped on Dr. Roberts in the weeks after the incident— it wasn’t because he held him in any higher esteem or, god forbid, believed in him as a worthy successor to run the clinic— it was because Hap had absolutely _no idea_ how to be a clinical psychologist. 

And now he’s thinking back to the first season of _The OA,_ the show that Emory had so enjoyed despite his bitter disappointment at missing out on being a part of it, because it was _that good,_ and he’s recalling it through the filter of his experience underground, trying to match up the scenes to his recollections, shot to moment, frame to feeling, and it’s absolutely uncanny. He pulls up Emory’s Netflix account and it’s an out of body experience, fast-forwarding through these episodes, watching this blandly generic Homer-actor’s face moving amongst the set design that doesn’t _quite_ manage to capture the utter sterile desolation of Hap’s glass trap but comes _freakishly_ close. He rewinds again and again the scene with the sheriff’s wife in the bedroom, the reenactment of that moment they touched for the only time in their native dimension, he can’t begin to comprehend the mechanism that would have led Brit Marling to subconsciously enact this recreation-as-art but it _did_ happen, he’s looking at incontrovertible proof.

He closes the browser window, abruptly disgusted with the simpering look on Blake Jenner’s face as Homer and OA are torn apart. Emory’s repressed disappointment rises to the top of his mind, unleashed by Homer’s repulsion: _I would have played this totally differently. And better, too, I would have done a better job, dammit, I deserved this role—_

Homer distracts himself by heading to Google and searching for updates on Brit’s condition. But there’s no more actual news about the on-set accident, nothing concrete. Just some frantic postings from fan accounts on social media, digital prayer circles and endless stressed speculation and the Variety exclusive badly rewritten and reposted on every entertainment news site known to man. Homer widens his search to the general, looking up “Brit Marling,” and below the recent headlines, pages of interviews, photoshoots, and gossip articles unspool, link after link after link.

She is _famous._ Late night talk show, fans adoring, paparazzi swarming, Vogue cover, _famous._ And in realizing this, Homer suddenly realizes the absolute impossibility of a plan he’d barely been aware that he was making.

If what OA said was true, and that she wouldn’t know herself in this universe (and he knew it was true because he had promised to follow her and _that_ was true and _he_ was right so _she_ must have been right as well), how would he ever, _ever_ have the chance to get himself in front of her, remind her of her true identity? 

To her, Ms. #8 On IMDB StarMeter, who was _he?_ A barely recalled also-ran, the guy who didn’t get the part, he remembers glimpsing her across the hall at the audition with only the barest conception of who she was and he stifles a cry, wishing desperately he could travel back in time instead of across dimensions.

He can’t just go _find_ her. It’s not that simple, because of course, it never ever could be. She probably has managers, agents, bodyguards, a whole posse of protective services, even when she’s _not_ in the presence of a man who maybe yesterday was her loving husband but _today_ most certainly was someone else, someone possessive and cruel and _dangerous._

And that’s not to say anything of the _other_ actors on the show, who perhaps would be easier to reach, more obscure in their fame (or relative lack of it): he pulls up the cast on Google and stares at those familiar faces and unfamiliar names, _Will Brill, Sharon Van Etten, Paz Vega._ Put it this way: a stranger tracks you down, gets in your personal space, insisting that he’s the real-life bodily-incarnated dimension-jumping version of a character from a science fiction show you’re on. What do you do? Probably call the cops. Knowing what he knows, what Dr. Roberts knows about the way these things work, the very last thing he wants right now is to be back in a mental hospital as a patient.

He wishes Renata could have jumped with him. He’d even have taken Scott, abrasive but useful. But as far as he knows it was only him and Hap who had made the jump with their minds intact… And as he muses on this he’s staring at the photos of the cast, and the thought comes to him that he has _no_ idea who half of these people are. Well, _Homer_ doesn’t— Emory recognizes them easily as the Crestwood Five, the kids (and teacher) that OA opens up to and tells her story to on the show.

Could that have really happened? Did she really teach these kids the movements? Surely, if the rest of the show was accurate down to the words spoken, in accordance with his every memory, which he’d just proven, then this was too. And if they knew the movements…. could it be possible that one of _them_ had come _here?_

 _Patrick Gibson. Brandon Perea. Ian Alexander. Brendan Meyer. Phyllis Smith._ So many options. But all of them leading directly back to his previous thought: he’d seem crazy. Insane. Schizoid, paranoid, utterly _delusional._ And the part of his mind that is Emory is screaming out against the idea of acting out in a way that would jeopardize, in the short or long term, the life he has so carefully and deliberately built for himself. 

Homer breathes out through his teeth, a long, slow hiss of despair, and finally takes a sip of his coffee, which by now has gone cold.

***

In the afternoon, the audition goes well. Nobody mentions or even seems to notice the bruise on his face. The professor character, Tracy Pond, has already been cast so he’s reading against her, an older actress named Mellie Mendes, who is tall and willowy and blonde in a way that breaks something small and delicate inside his chest over and over every time he looks at her. But that’s _good,_ as it turns out, because he is Emory performing the scene but he’s also Homer dreaming of reunion so when Jacob says to Tracy, “if you leave, you’ll take something with you and I’ll never get it back,” and Tracy says to Jacob, “You have my books. You have my films. You have me, on a screen. Isn’t that more real? More real than my touch?” and Jacob says, voice cracking, “Everyone else makes me want to be alone. Not you,” it is like three voices speaking at once, the character and the actor and the heartbroken, foreign, stranded mind gluing it all together.

Gina and Audrey at the table in the front of the room are seemingly struck dumb after the reading ends; Homer sees Gina writing something down in her notepad and resists the unprofessional urge to sneak a peek as he walks past.

“Amazing, Emory,” Audrey says, shaking his hand across the table. “Thanks for coming in. We’ll be in touch.”

And he walks out into the New York evening, less than 24 hours after arriving into this askew dimension, and for the first time he considers that he might end up staying here for a very long time.

***

 

 

A week passes, and then two things happen on the same day. 

First, a news report comes out that filming has resumed on _The OA,_ after Brit Marling had been medically cleared to go back to work after her accident. The second season is still on track to premiere next year. 

And second, he gets a call from Audrey. He’s gotten the role of Jacob in Gina Mulholland’s play, which is now officially titled _Heat Rises._ The workshop begins in five days. He can expect six months of workshopping and then possibly a move to off-Broadway. 

A paradoxical paralysis grips him in the face of these events. Inside, he is a war: Homer, screaming out _what about OA, go find her, go save her,_ desperate to fly across the ocean heedlessly and seek her out in the streets, wherever she is— Dr. Roberts, pragmatic, saying _stay put, make a plan—_ and Emory, driven by desires wholly outside of the echo that connects Homer to OA, saying _you have a play to rehearse, buddy, you aren’t going anywhere._  

This is the other side of integration. Every part of his mind has equal say. Homer the hopeless, devoted romantic will _not_ be winning out against Dr. Roberts the eminently practical and Emory the career-minded. 

So what can he do? What should he do?

He can _act_ . Emory’s studied the Method, he started at Strasberg when he was _sixteen_ , what kind of teenager voluntarily chooses to give up baseball and enroll in one of the most prestigiously difficult acting programs on the East Coast, _he_ did, apparently, and where had it gotten him? Well, some indie flicks, a bit of hype, and then one part lost and everything downhill from there, like the universe self-correcting, saying, nope, you don’t deserve to be successful after all, that was just a cruel trick I played for a half-decade, it’s back to the local theatre scene for you, sorry not sorry. 

But Emory has always planned to keep going, to keep trying. He has the patience of maturity, the same kind of measured belief in the reliable outcome of hard work and dedication that got Dr. Roberts through medical school and residency. So the thought of abandoning this opportunity is an absolute non-starter. Maybe if this were an action movie or a fast-paced walk-and-talk Sorkin drama Homer would be on a plane to London tonight to seek out OA, to shake her back into the mind of her host, but he _knows_ with dissonant, mind-bending certainty that all signs point to his life as _television._ Episodic. Metered. Serialized. He has to bide his time, wait for the next season to begin.

So he’ll act. He’ll take the role. He’ll let the parts of himself that belong to this world rise to the surface, and guide him for however long it takes for OA to come his way. Because the parts of himself that are Homer believes with a furious certainty, the same dangerous assurance that possessed OA on Dr. Roberts’ therapy couch, that she _will._ The powerful echoes of their native dimension will resonate here in this strange world and bring them back together. And when she does, Homer will be there, waiting, ready.

***

The workshops proceed through the summer and fall, the play evolving into something stranger and darker with every week. Emory takes to deep discussion with Gina after every rehearsal, and as the weeks pass he sees his suggestions and insights make their way into the body of the work. The dreams of Homer and his glass-walled trauma manifest themselves in the play as the scene where Tracy breaks into Jacob’s apartment and he traps her in his shower. The psychological expertise of Dr. Roberts finds the form of Tracy’s borderline personality and Jacob’s realistically depicted OCD. Meanwhile, Emory is relieved to watch the mildly contrived political commentary fall by the wayside, elided in later drafts by a focus on the horror inherent in the unbalanced codependence of the two leads.

And with Mellie, his co-star, he grows close, admiring her consummate dedication to the difficult role of the tortured Tracy, who is consumed over the course of the play’s two acts with an dually diseased obsession with both her own collection of films and Jacob’s opinions of them. Jacob in turn falls totally under her thrall, toting his camera around on stage to capture her every movement, the live feed of which is projected above the stage and around the theater and then remixed with clips from Tracy’s own _wunderkammer_ of obscure cinematic material. He plays off Mellie easily and eagerly; her flexibility and willingness to explore obscure mental spaces makes him feel like he’s in Philadelphia again, fresh-faced and eighteen and ready to devote his life to the truth of performance.

The buzz around the workshop grows steadily by word of mouth, attracting intelligentsia of all shades to its limited-ticket evenings. By the end of its run Gina is proud to announce to the assembled cast and crew that they’ve secured an Off-Broadway premiere for March of next year. November, December, and January will be their off months while further funding is raised and marketing and press can begin their respective cycles.

He’s happy, of course, he’s overjoyed. At least, Emory is. But Homer all too quickly roars to life with an internal panic. What is he going to do for three months, without the workshop to distract him? What will stop him from fixating on the fact that he doesn’t know where OA is, that Brit Marling has been off the grid ever since filming wrapped on _The OA_ this summer, that whispers on fan sites from mysterious sources report that her husband has taken a turn for the possessive, the unhinged, the _abusive?_

But there is that patience again, rising like hot water from those twin internal springs of the doctor and the actor, and they speak to reason in measured tones: _If you go after her, he will know you made it over, he will know that you integrated. You will put yourself in danger. If he gets to you, there will be nobody to protect her. Let him go on thinking that you don’t remember. She will come to you, she_ will, _and then you’ll make your move._

He takes it one day at a time. During the break from the play he does a short film, guest stars in an episode of a web series, meets with his agent to discuss opportunities for the summer. In these moments Homer is submerged in the depths of the mind he shares, and it’s only at night, as Emory slips into sleep, that he rises to the surface, and fills his dreams with visions of OA.

A weaker mind might drown in the strong current, pulling him along the tide of someone else’s life. But Homer is strong, stronger than he’s ever been, he can _feel_ the secret knots that bind the universe drawing her closer and closer to him. Perhaps his trust is mislaid, perhaps he is still as naive as he ever was, the same boy who rode hours in a stranger’s car, farther and farther away from home for the promise of a paltry $500— but since that day he has suffered so much, and that suffering has sharpened his senses in a way he has forever been at a loss to describe, he cannot explain how and why he has faith but he _does._ And it’s only a matter of time before he’s proven right.

 

***

 

 

 

Previews for _Heat Rises_ begin in early March. Emory is walking through the Union Square subway station when he stops dead in his tracks, staring ahead of him at a dual billboard on the wall of the platform.

Commuters jostle him on all sides but he cannot move. On the left side of the billboard is a _Heat Rises_ poster, featuring an artistic photo of a burning film strip and some woozy, modern typography. On the right side is a blue-tinted picture, white lines of light curving around a woman wearing a red dress, her hair long and blonde and blowing in an invisible wind, and to the side bold print reads: _The OA Part II. Coming March 22._

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, gazing at that strange concordance, but eventually an irate man with a briefcase knocks directly against him and interrupts his reverie. He boards the L train, shaken, keeping his eyes on the poster through the train window until the very last second. It _must_ be a sign.

And three weeks later, when the New York Times prints a favorable review of _Heat Rises_ in the Weekend Arts section, it is directly opposite a full-page, full color advertisement for _The OA_ Part II.

The night after the review is printed, he gets a phone call from a blocked number. Expecting spam or scam, he picks up, fully prepared to hang up immediately or ask to be put on a Do Not Call list.

“Hello?”

“Is this Emory Cohen?” The voice is male, young, faintly accented.

“Yeah, it is, can I ask who’s—”

He’s interrupted: “Are you _you_? Or are you him?”

Homer’s heart picks up speed. “Am I—”

“Are you _Homer?”_

Silence on the line as the mysterious voice waits for him to speak, to confirm, to deny.

“I’m— yes, _yes,_ I’m—”

“Prove it. Tell me something only Homer would know.”

Homer closes his eyes to stop the room from spinning around him as he thinks, _remembers,_ and slowly, he says _—_  

“One night, before she got her sight back, she leaned up against the wall between us, pressing herself so close to try and feel the heat of my body, try and create a shape for me in her mind— and she told me about the parade that came through her hometown every summer. Each August they’d hold this street festival, sort of like a sequel to the fourth of July, but it was all to honor this dog that had saved a family from a fire. They’d thrown the dog a parade when it had happened and then they just kept on doing it every year, even after the dog passed away. They’d have a float with this paper-mache dog lead the procession, and there was a song they’d sing—”

“ _Bertie Bertie, dog of the year,”_ the voice on the other side of the call sings, softly, brokenly. “I can’t believe she told you about that. God, I—”

And Homer can hear him crying, and he fights back his own tears as he asks:

“Who _are_ you?”

“I’m Steve. Paddy Gibson. I’m one of the—”

“Crestwood kids, I know, I— I’ve watched the show. Fuck,” he whispers, with aching relief, “have you been here this whole time? I’m so sorry, I didn’t— I couldn’t risk—”

“It’s fine,” Steve says, sounding like he’s lying. “Look. I’m on lockdown, I swear to god Hap’s tapped my phone, I can’t talk for long, I’m borrowing a burner from a bodega guy—” 

“Steve, tell me what happened. How did you get here, did anyone else—”

“I jumped at the same time as OA and Hap. And you I guess, but I didn’t— anyway, I _willed_ myself to her. I followed her down the invisible river, and I _tried_ to protect her, I did, but I was too reckless, I didn’t _think._ I exposed myself too soon. The motherfucker threatened to have me fired, he said he’d make her believe I was a danger to the show, a _liability,_ and she’d kill my character off and _—”_

“And she would. She’d take his word for it.”

“Of course she would,” Steve chokes. “But I _had_ to stay close, I had to watch her, _protect her._ So I backed down. I finished out the season. Like a goddamn professional. But after we wrapped he whisked her away, I couldn’t follow— he wanted her all to himself, I didn’t know where they’d gone and Paddy was never too close to Brit so I couldn’t just _call,_ I couldn’t get in direct contact without arousing suspicion.” His accent is slip-sliding between Midwestern and Irish with every other syllable. “But now we’re about to do the press tour for the new season, I’m in New York and I’ll see her again, but I can’t save her by myself, I just can’t, so I need _you—”_

“Steve, but _how—_ how did you find me?” 

“ _Heat Rises._ The review in the New York Times. Funny, I— Steve— always hated theatre but Paddy’s a drama geek, so—” He cuts himself off, gets to the point, as though he’s being rushed off stage by the orchestra at an awards ceremony: “I saw your face, in the photo. And somehow I _knew_ it was you, just like I _knew_ that douche Jenner _wasn’t_ you— the way OA had described you, you know, to us, but also— an instinct.” 

“We’re connected,” Homer says. “Through her. That’s how you knew.”

“Yeah. Makes sense.”

“So what’s the plan?” 

“Sorry?” 

Homer can’t believe it. This kid goes to the trouble of borrowing a phone from a bodega guy and he doesn’t even think to have a plan ready first? Though, he reasons, this is the kid who’d just fully admitted to fucking up almost immediately post-jump by making Hap aware of his presence, so it did make sense. 

“A _plan._ You don’t have one?” Homer’s tone is low and serious.

“Well, I’m here, so I was thinking I could meet you—”

“No. It’s too dangerous, if there’s any chance Hap is watching. I’ve survived this long because he hasn’t known my name here, because I’m _not_ on the show. You’ve survived, I dunno, because of pure dumb luck. But I know what we need to do now.”

Homer can practically hear Steve’s anxiety seething through the phone.

“Homer, _what do we do?”_  

“We have to get her to come to the play. My play. You have a night off in New York, I assume?” 

“Yeah— yeah, I can send you the schedule—”

“Don’t bother. Any night will work. You buy a pair of tickets for Jason and Brit, as an apology gift for being so disruptive on set during shooting. It’s the kind of play Brit would love so she will definitely want to come. A mind-bending philosophical tragic romance.”

“But Hap—Hap will realize you’re in the cast once he sees the photo in the Times. He’ll try to stop her from going, from _seeing_ you, wouldn’t he?” 

“Yeah, you’d think— but I _know_ Hap. I know how his mind works. He was so desperate to understand why I hadn’t made the jump the first time. He’s probably driven himself crazy wondering if I made it over here, and because it’s been so long and I haven’t come after him yet, he probably thinks that I _didn’t,_ that I was suppressed by my host again, that he came out on top. And because he’s a vain, prideful man, and nothing delights him more than visual proof of his own superiority presented in an aesthetically pleasing manner, I have a hunch that he’d absolutely _love_ to accompany his beloved Brit to a play in which he can watch Emory- definitely-not-Homer gad about, presumably oblivious to the identity of the woman sitting next to him.” 

Steve lets out a long whistle, obviously impressed. “Damn, dude.... The long game. Shit. I wish I had your patience.”

 _I wish you had my patience too, Steve, because then maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation,_ Homer absolutely does _not_ say out loud. _It’s not_ my _patience, it’s Emory’s, it’s Dr. Roberts’,_ he also does not say.

Instead, he says: “You got it?”

“Yeah,” says Steve. “Yeah, I got it. Get her to the gig.” 

Homer doesn’t bother saying the obvious, what they both know, or rather, what they don’t and cannot possibly know: what will happen, once she is there, once she sees him. How many times had Dr. Roberts sat with her, treated her, _touched_ her without ever waking up? 

But— _neither_ of them had been integrated then. Two half-obscured minds muddling through a parody of frustrated interaction, neither of them truly _understanding_ who they were speaking to. Like one brick wall conversing to another. No wonder it ended in pain and death. All tragedy is borne of miscommunication, he thinks, recalling his Shakespeare. (Emory’s Shakespeare.)

This time, it’s different. He knows it is. He has three fully-realized consciousnesses at his disposal, locked and loaded. And underneath Brit, he is _sure,_ is that glorious gestalt: Prairie. Nina. And the Original Angel. Just waiting to be freed. 

*** 

The play has been open for a week when he gets a text from an unknown number.

_SHE’S COMING TONIGHT. —S/P_

Homer texts back:

_See you on the other side. —H/H/E_

Steve responds: _BREAK A LEG HOMEDAWG._  

***

In the dressing room before the show begins, Homer is not sure at all if he’ll be able to do it. Just _knowing_ she’s so close— Emory’s necessitated position at the forefront of his triplicate consciousness during performance seems dangerously fragile. What if in seeing her he chokes, stumbles, becomes fully Homer and unable to proceed with any action other than _reaching her_ , right there in the theater, and in doing so reveals himself too soon, pulling a Steve so to speak, and opens himself up to interference from Hap?

But when he takes the stage and scans the first few rows, he doesn’t see her; he can’t find her in the darkness of the auditorium, and there’s a shameful relief in giving up then, in letting Emory take over and proceed through the scenes he knows so well. Maybe she had decided not to come— maybe she was late— maybe Homer had been wrong, and Hap had wanted to keep her away after all, that he’d given up his gloating ways in favor of hoarding her, dragonlike.

Two hours in, the play comes to a climax, approaches consummation. The screens and projections around the theater turn simultaneously to images of flames and fire, representing the destruction of Tracy’s celluloid Library of Babel. The audience is first lit in washes of orange and yellow, and then a crew member turns one of the projectors towards the seats, so it’s as if the play-goers themselves are on fire, they _are_ fire, implicated directly in the loss of that precious archive that had driven a genius to madness. 

And Jacob takes his position center stage, kneeling, beseeching Tracy for forgiveness, crying out for her love even though it’s brought him this close to death— and now comes a bit of blocking that Emory had suggested during dress and they’d run with, where Mellie appears as Tracy’s ghost in black and white up at the top of the theater, like one of her beloved silent film stars, directly behind the audience, and he ascends to her through the flames before the lights go out and the play ends.

So Emory-as-Jacob rises up past the proscenium and through the central aisle, and as his eyes rise to find Mellie-as-Tracy he realizes he cannot find her, she is not there, she must have missed her cue, the spotlight has landed on a blank doorframe— and then there is movement, he thinks she’s arrived, but it’s not her, it’s an audience member getting up from their seat near the back, rushing towards the door in some kind of frenzy.

And as Homer approaches up the stairs it’s like Jacob’s camera coming into focus. Features resolve before his eyes, caught in the glare of the spotlight: white-blonde hair, cut short; blue eyes, wide and confused; face pale and gaunt like someone trapped underground for years and years; beautiful, hopeful, _awakening._  

He reaches her, at the top of the theater, he reaches _out_ for her and she takes his hand like it’s the only thing she knows how to do.

He is dimly aware of more movement off to the side, the terrifyingly familiar form of a tall man shouldering his way out of the aisle towards them, but it’s too late— the lights around them go out with a crash of a sound effect, and the theater is pitched into blackness, right on cue.

The play is over.

And Homer has his arm around her, they are shoving past a form in the vestibule that he recognizes as an out-of-breath, embarrassed Mellie; they burst into the lobby of the theater and the swell of the audience’s ambient babble behind them is cut off as soon as it begins when they push out through the glass doors at the theater’s entrance and out onto the nighttime New York street.

There is a black car double-parked out front, its hazards flashing, not that Homer takes any notice.

“I’m not dreaming... am I?” she says. They are inches apart, facing each other, the ambient soundscape of the street fading away to nothingness as their eyes meet.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “But there’s only one way to prove it.”

And Homer presses his face to hers in a deep, otherworldly kiss, and she wraps her arms around him; his tears mingle with hers as their skin meets. After seconds that feel like years she pulls away an inch just so she can say his name, _“Homer,”_ she breathes with the deep relief of someone coming _home,_ finally, after a very, very long time away, and he stifles a sob so he can pull her back in and kiss her again. 

And they could have stayed happily locked in that position forever, but from behind OA there’s suddenly a shout—

“Get in, you idiots, he’s coming!” Emerging from the stage door up the street, a boy in a leather jacket is running full-tilt towards them, gripping with an extended hand a key fob in the direction of the car and unlocking it with a chirp. Homer regains his senses in time to rush OA towards the vehicle, opening the door and then climbing in after her as the boy— _Steve—_ jumps into the driver’s seat.

The car starts with a satisfying growl, and they’re peeling away from the curb. Homer leans over to pull the car door closed on his side, and as he does so he glances out the back window— just in time to see Hap flinging the doors of the theater open at the forefront of the rush of exiting patrons, he sees the car pulling away and he’s running out onto the street after them, desperate, enraged—

“Go, _go!_ ” Homer says frantically, and Steve hits the gas with obvious glee, he’s _laughing_ as they shoot off down the narrow road and leave Hap in the dust. Homer’s last glimpse of Hap as they turn the corner is him slowing to a halt, hands on his knees, out of breath, devastated, knowing he’s lost her, lost them all, _lost._  

Right on Avenue B, left onto Houston, and within minutes they’ve made it to FDR Drive, they’re speeding north towards who knows what, and OA is leaning against Homer in exhausted silence.

Steve’s knuckles slowly loosen their vice grip around the steering wheel and he’s the first to break the silence:

“OA… it’s you...?”

In response she levers herself up off of Homer’s side, leans forward between the front seats, and gently plants a kiss on the side of Steve’s head. He smiles, not daring to taking his eyes off the road. 

“Steve... _thank you_ ,” she says, and it’s all she needs to say.

“Wait a second,” Homer interrupts, hypothesis-driven Dr. Roberts coming to the fore of his mental process, “wait just one second. How did you—  _what_ did you—”

“When we talked,” Steve says, “on the phone, you got under my skin about not having a plan. So I got a bit… _proactive._ I came to the show, the other night—”

“You _did?”_

“—and I watched as you came up the stairs at the end, so when I bought the tickets for Jason and Brit I made sure they were sitting close to that exit, that you’d _see_ her right as the play ended. And _then,_ tonight, I snuck backstage and got up into Tracy’s business before her final cue, so that she wouldn’t be there when you reached the top.”

OA speaks, now: “But how did you know I’d—” 

“Go to him?” Steve shakes his head, lets out a soft laugh. “Lucky guess.”

“And the car?” Homer asks. 

“Well, how did _you_ think you were going to escape? You would’ve stood there snogging until Hap had his hands around both your necks.” Paddy’s brogue comes in strong as his tone grows ever more deservedly boastful. “And I’ve always wanted to drive a getaway car, besides.”

Homer is embarrassed now, more than a little bit, by the thoughts he’d had regarding Steve’s fitness for plan-making. 

“Why didn’t you warn me?” he asks.

“What, and have you fuck up the show out of nerves?” Steve says. “I _know_ what it’s like to be integrated, Homer, and integrated with an _actor,_ at that. How if you get twisted up for the wrong reasons you can’t do the work. I couldn’t risk it.”

Homer has to admit this makes sense, and he manages to choke out a mumbled apology to Steve, who acknowledges it with a tip of his head.

“You _guys,”_ says OA, suddenly, seriously, and Homer turns to her, worried, but then she starts laughing, a big-hearted, expansive laughter of relief and joy and freedom that he’d never ever heard from Prairie or Nina and he realizes, with a headrush of bliss, that it’s the moment he’s been waiting for, months in the making: now he can get to know her, all over again. This Brit Marling, this creative genius, this cinematic auteur— she is a part of OA now, just like Emory is a part of Homer. 

“I thought I made you up,” she says, leaning in close to him in the backseat. “All these months… you were just a _story_. Lines in a script. A character, a voice in my head...”

He lets her lean her head onto his chest, her hand on his heart, feeling it beat with the energy of three different dimensions.

“At the end of the new season, of— of the show... we jump. I fall,” OA says. “Just like how it really happened.” She traces a finger along the side of Homer’s face. “But I— I don’t know what happens next. I haven’t written it yet.”

Homer looks at her. The lights of the highway strobe across her face, illuminating her features like an ever-shifting mosaic, each part jewel-perfect.

“That’s okay, OA,” he says. “That’s fine. We can write it together.”   

She kisses him, again, and again, and again. Steve, at the wheel, pretends not to notice, as he guides the car north, into the night, into the future.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Heat Rises is not a real play. All of the articles were written by me and mocked up in Chrome/Photoshop also by me! Emory Cohen is a true sweetheart and a genius actor and I am not usually a writer of RPF so my instinct is to like, defend myself here, but like.... this show LMAO.
> 
> Anyway this is not what I think will ACTUALLY happen in Part III to be clear but Homer/OA has taken over my life and I needed some good fix-it fic so :')


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